CHAPTER XIX CASSOWARY LOSES HER TEMPER ONCE
John and Margie had sent him six chocolate eggs stuffed with cream.
"It isn't Easter," squealed Dovey delightedly.
"No," said Dallas, "but John and Margie know that I love them."
"They're deliciouth," lisped little Big Wig, whereupon Dallas promptly gave him one.
Two of the others he shared with the bigger children, then he put the box under his arm.
He had scarcely tasted them himself, and I knew by his look that he was going to share these other three with someone who did not get as many dainties as these children. He was a most generous lad.
I saw his glance go toward the kitchen, then the lake. Ah! that meant Bingi and Bolshy—but the third one. Perhaps he would keep that for himself. I hoped he would and I followed him as he sauntered slowly toward the log cabin.
Arrived there he stared up at the wheat mow. Ah! I might have known. That third egg was for his Cousin Cassowary, who had been so kind in explaining things about the farm to him. She had a cache in the straw where she put things she did not wish her sister and brothers to see, and one day in a moment of confidence she had shown it to Dallas.
The lad went cautiously up the ladder. I knew he was going to lay the egg among Cassowary's treasures. What a joyful surprise she would get when she found it, for it was a nice large egg just stuffed with the rich cream that I like myself.
Alas! She discovered him in the act. Her grandmother had sent her some nuts and she was coming in her swift stealthy way to hide them.
She saw me standing by the ladder and heard the tell-tale rustling above. Then like a flash she was up on the mow, and had my poor young master by the collar.
The children had a very naughty trick of stealing from each other, and she was so sure that she had caught a culprit that she gave him no chance for explanation.
I was furiously angry as I heard her, beating him and dragging him round on the straw, but also delighted that he uttered no cry for mercy.
Finally she sent him flying down the ladder, and he stood before me grinning sheepishly and trying to look as if he didn't mind the blood trickling from his poor nose.
The collar was torn from his shirt, and his coat was besmeared with chocolate.
"You're a gay looking guy," said someone from the doorway, and turning round we saw Big Chief.
"What you been doing?" he went on, and Dallas remarked cheerfully, "Trying to give a present to a girl."
"You've crossed Cassowary," said Big Chief, "and she's a bad one to cross. Has she got her nest up there?"
Dallas shrugged his shoulders and did not reply.
Oh! how indignant I was with that naughty girl. I stamped and whinnied and looked up at the loft just to tease her, and Big Chief, with a knowing glance at me, began to climb the ladder, but very cautiously for he feared that he, too, might meet with a warm reception.
Cassowary had been cunning enough to keep quiet when she heard her brother's voice, but when she saw his head, she flew at him, and shouting with glee he beat a speedy retreat.
My young master, breathing painfully, sat down on a box, and put his hand to his side.
Suddenly there was a low cry from above, then a voice reading—"This chocolate egg is for my kind Cousin Cassowary."
"Oh! Oh!" said the girl coming down the ladder like a cat, and standing before Dallas. "Why didn't I look before I leaped?"
Dallas shook his head. "Lots of people don't, Cassowary."
"Oh! boy, boy," she cried, "I didn't dream you were giving me your lovely eggs, and now they're all smashed and my nuts have rolled in corners and I haven't anything. What an idiot I am!"
Dallas pressed his lips together. He was not going to tell her that she was to have only one of the eggs. However, she glanced at the paper in her hand and said, "Why you say 'egg'—for whom were the others?"
"Bolshy and Bingi."
"I'll have to give them something," she said. "Oh! what a wicked girl I am. I should not have been so quick—and your poor nose is bleeding again. Here, take my handkerchief. I don't know what Mother will say."
"Will you have to tell her?" asked Dallas in a choked voice.
Oh! how afraid I was that he would persuade her to keep the affair a secret. I wanted her punished. She had been too swift. She was too sure of herself anyway for a girl her age.
"Certainly," she sighed. "I'll go just as soon as your nose stops bleeding—what a mess you are in. I wonder whether Prince Pony would eat that chocolate?" and she made a sudden dash up the ladder and came back with some sticky brown stuff on a bit of the cardboard box.
I turned my head away. I was not going to help her clean up.
"Your Prince is indignant," she said. "He despises me. Oh! come away to the house. Maybe when I'm punished I'll feel better," and she dragged Dallas down to the veranda where her sensible mother sat quietly reading letters.
Mrs. Devering put up her eyebrows when she saw the state my dear young master was in, then she listened to Cassowary's mournful story.
Her arm was round the sobbing girl, for her dark eyes told her that the grinning cheerful Dallas did not need any sympathy.
"I am glad that your father is away, dearie," she said to Cassowary. "This would have distressed him terribly. Dallas is your guest and your cousin. I wonder what we can do to these young hands to make them remember not to offend against the laws of hospitality?"
"M-m-make them sew," gurgled Cassowary. "They just hate it."
Mrs. Devering was slowly caressing the girl's long brown fingers. "Poor little hands," she said gently, "poor little hands."
"And bad brain," said Cassowary, "bad, bad brain that makes the hands act so shamefully."
"Dallas," said Mrs. Devering, "is there anything I can do for you?"
"No, thank you, Aunt Bretta. I'm all right. Please don't fuss."
"Kindly put on a fresh shirt," said Mrs. Devering, "and give this one to Cassowary to wash and mend, and you, Girlie, come to your room with me."
"I—I'm just like an Indian in the woods," said Cassowary with a last burst of contrition.
Mrs. Devering turned an almost frightened face to me as I trotted along the veranda beside them. Then her eyes went through an open door to a picture that hung on the wall in Cassowary's room. It was that of a favourite cousin of Mrs. Devering's, and I had often heard her tell the girl that she hoped she would grow up to be as good as this cousin.
"My child," she said, "good Indians restrain their passions. Sit down there by the window and I will read to you."
After a time she left her daughter, and for the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon we could see the girl sitting sewing slowly, often breaking her thread and stopping to rub her sticky needle on her clothes.
Once when I was near I heard her muttering something she seemed to be learning from a book,
"Calm and serene my frame,
Calm and serene my frame."
Well! she needed considerably more calmness and serenity before she would make the woman her mother was. However she was young, poor girl—I must not be too hard on her, but before the day was over, I was wishing most earnestly that she had been sent to bed and kept there until her temper had really left her excitable young body.
Her father did not come home till the middle of the afternoon, but in the meantime the work of the farm went on as usual.
Mr. MacDonald was helping Mr. Talker experiment with a new machine that cut down trees close to the roots.
My young master was much interested in this small saw which was operated by a little motor. He followed the men for some time and saw them fell some old dead trees on the hill, then he watched the Macedonian and another man working in the hay field.
Finally he brought up beside Big Chief who was repairing a sheep rack back of the barn.
The younger children had all been on their ponies' backs scurrying up and down the road, finally turning their pets loose outside the gates where they moved about cropping the short sweet grass and clover by the foot paths or lifting their heads to look lovingly at their beloved owners.
Jack Gray had a very amusing manner, and a most original way of moving his long ears. He was always classed with the ponies as there was no other donkey about the place, and the little Master of Bressay had already whispered to me in confidence that it made Jack very angry to be called a donkey. He had been so much with ponies that he thought he was one.
Big Chief, flattered by his cousin's interest, jerked out remarks as he hammered and sawed.
"Best way to feed sheep is on ground—if ground is muddy, feed in racks. Sheep should get heads in racks. To prevent wool from being pulled from necks slats should be smooth and not too close together."
My young master became so interested that he got another hammer and began to nail too, and I, hearing Dovey calling to her younger brothers to come to the house, trotted over to see what they were going to do.
"Want to come, Prince?" she asked. "We're going to bring Barklo home."
I bowed my head and went gaily along beside her and Sojer and little Big-Wig.
Suddenly she stopped and pushing back her square cut hair from her forehead said, "I'm hot—I think Big Chief's mean."
"Was he told to come for Barklo?" asked Sojer.
"Yes, Mother asked him but he was lazy."
"You little goose," I thought. "Big Chief is working harder now than if he were sauntering along this lovely lake road."
"He's too bossy with us," said Sojer fiercely.
"Yeth" lisped little Big Wig, "I've a great mind to give him a thlap thome day."
Young Dovey, far from dreaming that she was to play the part of a firebrand and that she would be assisted by her big sister, gabbled on about Big Chief's tiresome ways until they came to the Widow Detover's small brown house set in a garden having an orchard behind it.
There was a whitewashed fence about the garden and opening the gate they all went up a brick walk to the open front door.
A thoroughbred Airedale came bounding out and almost ate them up.
Behind him appeared the funny fat little widow, who had an enormous chest and breathed with difficulty.
She called them "My dears," and invited them into a cool little parlour with old-fashioned furniture covered with horsehair and having a stuffed animal in each corner of the room.
I looked in the window. I detest stuffed animals. They often have moths in them and usually smell queer, and I can't understand what pleasure deadly musty creatures can give to human beings.
The bear cub, fox, wildcat and raccoon all seemed to be staring at the strange sight of a good-sized lamb lying on a red blanket.
It was a soiled and wilted kind of a lamb who was terribly bored at being kept in the house this warm day.
"How is your poor animal?" inquired Dovey in a grown-up way.
"Some better," said the widow. "Cheer up, Constancy, and look at your nice callers."
The lamb looked strangely at the children, then put her head down on the sofa cushion.
"It's bitters time, sweetheart," said the widow, and going to the mantel she took up a black bottle and holding back the lamb's lip poured some down her throat.
"What a pity you're thuch a gooth," said young Big Wig indignantly.
His sister and brother looked shocked, and the widow hopeless.
"What does he say?" she asked. "I can't understand his dear little gibberish."
Dovey didn't want to tell her that Big Wig had called her a goose, so she said falteringly, "I think Big Wig thinks that your three acre field was too much for the lamb."
Big Wig was going on, "My Daddy saith widowth mean to Conthanthy. She thould have let me cut grath with my mower."
"Did your father think I was wrong to ask the lamb to eat the grass in my field?" exclaimed the widow.
Dovey glanced at Sojer but he would not open his young mouth, so she said politely, "Dad thought Constancy was pretty small, and the field was pretty big. She was lost in that grass—and Dad thinks she's lonely. Why don't you put her with our sheep?"
"She's not lonely with that dog," said the widow bristling up.
"But that dogth our dogth," broke in Big Wig, "and we ith going to take him home."
The widow broke into a wailing. The lamb would die without the dog and she was a lonely creature. Couldn't they spare her one animal out of their abundance?
Big Wig who was the only one not embarrassed said simply to Barklo, "Doth you want to sthay here?"
"Oh! no, no," barked the Airedale, "I'm dying of homesickness. This woman is a fat old fuss. She doesn't know how to take care of animals—Constancy, get off that sofa and run to my lovely home with me."
Constancy promptly did as she was bid, and the widow began to mourn. "You're all going to leave me. I won't stay here alone. I'll put on my bunnit and go along with you—Constancy, I'm ashamed of you."
The lamb who was just following the dog out the doorway turned round. "Ba-a-a, I'm tired of you. I hate this sofa and those stuffed animals and your grass made me sick. I want a change of diet and to live with my own kind."
"Mrs. Detover," said Dovey, "come and call on Mother. She is a great one to straighten things out."
The widow nodded, then as she came to the window to pull down the blind she said, "Why, drat that pony—he's on my lilies of the valley. Shoo! Pony."
I wasn't on her lilies, but I ran on beside Barklo and Constancy who were talking to each other in low voices.
"Don't go back," said the dog. "She'll kill you. She means well but she's one of those persons who should never have an animal to bring up—Hello! Pony, I've heard of you. What do you think of that old woman?"
"I agree with Big Wig," I said drily.
"Mrs. Devering will settle her," said Barklo as we trudged along. "Oh! how glad I am to get home. How glad, how glad! No one knows how hard it is for a dog to do his duty."
"You'll appreciate your home all the more for having done your duty," I said.
Barklo didn't hear me. He was leaping to meet Champ who was coming up from the wharf carrying some rowlocks in his hand.
Champ embraced him, then turned to his sister and brothers who were alone now, the widow having gone trotting up to the veranda where she saw Mrs. Devering sitting; the lamb, after a glance at her, trailing happily after the dog.
The boy was annoyed, and Dovey said, "What's fretting you?"
"Big Chief sent me for these," he said, jingling the rowlocks. "He promised them to Mr. Talker for his boat. Why didn't he get them himself? I'm not his slave!"
This was enough for the young ones, and they started another indignation meeting, finally agreeing that they would not wait on their big brother any more. The next time he gave an order they would turn on him.
"He'll strike you," remarked Big Wig cheerfully.
"Let him strike," said Champ. "We'll strike back. He's getting too big for his boots. I wish Dad would lick him."